(1)Metal Gear Solid vs (8)EarthBound 2015
Results Round Two Saturday, November 28, 2015 Ulti's Analysis A lot of people will point to MGS3/BioShock as the true example of the MGS series being completely screwed in this contest, but that match had a weird triple rally going on where all three rallies were against MGS3. But we'll get to that insanity in a bit. For me, the true sign MGS was completely and utterly fucked was this match right here. I know EarthBound showed it was legit against Borderlands 2 and that it has some newfound strength, but coming close to breaking 40% on Metal Gear Solid was just ridiculous. Remember, before this contest EarthBound had never won a match. Now we were watching it beat Borderlands 2 and get 40% on Metal Gear Solid. This wasn't an old > new thing, either, as EarthBound is only 4 years older than Metal Gear Solid. I guess you could make the case for an insane SNES boost, but even still. 40% on Metal Gear Solid, which is the one game from this series that should be looking good even when the other games all suck it up. When the flagship game is out there performing like trash, you know you're done. It's really bad when some games in the series looked better in losses than others did in wins. This was just awful, and frankly the series needed a lucky draw to have a game make it into the final 8. It seems relevant that virtually everyone in the Oracle overshot this match, and that MGS1 was a top 10 game in 2009. Six years later and we had... whatever this was. Ctes' Analysis Today, I don't think even the original Metal Gear Solid avoided disappointing us. That franchise had looked relatively terrible pretty every single match of the contest so far, all five of them, with the possible exception of Metal Gear Solid, but this doesn't look good either. Earthbound should not be allowed to run for breaking 40% today. It was actually a lot worse until Earthbound's terrible Europe vote kicked in. Albeit in the weakest quarter of the bracket, Metal Gear Solid was the favorite to reach the semi-finals. Then you just don't go and let Earthbound break get this close to breaking 40%. Earthbound is a very great game, but the series has been dead for so many year outside of Japan where its less years, but still dead as well, not counting Smash Bros appearances, which probably do a lot. Earthbound has looked pretty bad previously, hence why Metal Gear Solid gets to look bad today. That said I do think it has gotten stronger. This Earthbound doesn't look like it'd lose badly to Doom. It has always had a high cult status and now with little to no younger users voting, a larger part of the voters has played it and almost all probably know it. In Metal Gear Solid's defense, this year has had a couple of SNES games making their opponents look bad, where the weaker SNES games might not win, but still get to embarrass something going on. We saw that with Mega Man X against Final Fantasy X and it's the same thing happening today really. Another thing is that Earthbound is probably the worst kind of opponent for Metal Gear Solid, so it's really convenient that it's not a stronger one. The two games are really about as different as it gets. So now Metal Gear Solid doesn't “only” have anti-Konami stuff against it (which is stupid given what Konami was at its time) as well as of course Earthbound's fanbase. If you're not into the kind of game Metal Gear Solid is, then there's a completely different game to vote for. If the other one was closer in genre, perhaps just being a shooter, the people that doesn't know either might just very well side with the first option, bracket vote, recognizable franchise name or whatever, but Earthbound is entirely different. It probably helps a little bit at least. Metal Gear Solid didn't get to look too good today, but it was still considered the favorite going against Shadow of the Colossus. Earthbound beating Red Dead Redemption wouldn't be weird considering what kinds of games they are, their times and platforms, as well as their genre and it wouldn't even need to be my much that Earthbound would have to win for Metal Gear Solid to still be safe. At this point it was looking like it might just save itself from exiting earlier than expected by good bracket placement. External Links * Match Updates * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category:2015 Contest Matches